Declarer of Independence: WSJ on Woolsey

The Wall Street Journal profiles Set America Free’s Jim Woolsey:

James Woolsey, a Beltway Democrat-turned-Republican, is plotting to go “off-grid” and tools around town in a plug-in hybrid with a bumper sticker that says “Osama Bin Laden Hates This Car.”[...]

Mr. Woolsey’s mantra [...] is that the U.S. needs to break its dependence on Middle Eastern oil. [...] Mr. Woolsey says he first got “ticked off” over energy when he got stuck in a gas line in 1973 — “and I’m still ticked off.” What also peeves him are critics who snipe at the call for independence without understanding it.

No, the U.S. can’t cut itself off from all oil imports or turn itself into an “economic hermit,” he says. “But we can destroy oil’s monopoly over transportation.”

Cars, trucks and planes gobble up nearly seven out of every 10 barrels of oil consumed in the U.S., the Energy Department says. Mr. Woolsey wants to chop that way down. [...]A frenetic talker with a shiny pate, Mr. Woolsey insists that America’s salvation lies mainly in battery-powered cars and alternative fuels. [...]

Perhaps because of his own mixed political lineage, Mr. Woolsey is known for bringing odd birds together. His Set America Free Coalition, a group dedicated to weaning the U.S. off foreign oil, runs the gamut from conservative evangelical Gary Bauer to prairie liberals like Tom Daschle, the former senator from South Dakota.

Comments are closed.